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Hausse

Your religious background

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I really have to bite my tongue when I hear that.



I know. Sorry I equate it with your "spirituality" comment - it's just when I hear someone saying they are spiritual, I think of a person with focus crystals, etc - essentially a way of saying...."Hey, I'm religious, but I don't like the organized religions, and I don't like the term, so I'll call it something else."

For others, 'spiritual' just means they are introspective and feel an undefined connection with those around them and don't think it's important to define that subjective feeling by the physical, psychological, and chemical reactions in their bodies. This I don't mind, but that's not really spiritual, just that calling it 'spiritual' can get them more women because it's a trendy term. :ph34r::ph34r::P

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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And some people think that there are elements (call them spiritual, paranormal, whatever) about people that we just don't understand yet. And they call that spiritual. Some people lump religion in with them. They feel a connection or power.

None of "those" things (e.g. ghosts, ouija boards, etc) work around me. But I'm not arrogant enough to say that it doesn't exist. I am apathetic enough to say that I have no interest in studying them :ph34r:. But I do occasionally practice religion. It's a good discipline to remind myself of values that seem to have some universal value (yes, I pick and choose), to spend some time each week thinking about what it means to be a good person, and to be with people who have the same focus.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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... I am not atheist. An atheist is someone who says God does not exist. That's equally as bad as the people who says he does. Nobody knows. It's foolishness to say that one person does. Unless that person has special powers that I don't. I don't believe in a God or Gods. Do they exist? Who knows. But logically speaking I believe that they do not. ....

You seem to be a little off on what it means to be an atheist. It sounds like you are definitely an atheist but not a gnostic or strong atheist. Here is a good explanation of the terms from : http://www.atheist-community.org/faq/#atheist_agnostic

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Q: What's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?

A: It has to do with the difference between what you believe and what you think you can prove. For any particular god that you can imagine, a "theist" is one who has a belief in that god. An "atheist" is one who does not have a belief in the god. A "gnostic" is one who believes that the god can be proved to exist, and an "agnostic" is one who believes that the god cannot be proved to exist.

Notice that the terms "atheist" and "agnostic", by these definitions, are not mutually exclusive. You could be an agnostic atheist, meaning you don't think one can prove the existence or nonexistence of gods, but you don't choose to believe in one without further proof. Many people assume that atheists believe that gods can be proved not to exist, but this isn't strictly true and there is no word to describe this. You could call such a person an "untheist", perhaps. Or, you could just call such a person a "gnostic atheist", one who doesn't believe in a god and thinks that his non-belief can be proved.

So there are four possible ways one could be.

1. Agnostic-Theist: believes god exists, but it can't be proved
2. Gnostic-Theist: believes it can be proved that gods exist
3. Agnostic-Atheist: does not believe god exists, but it can't be proved
4. Gnostic-Atheist: believes it can be proved that god does not exist

Case 3 is sometimes referred to as "weak atheism" and case 4 is sometimes referred to as "strong atheism". Only strong atheism positively asserts that there are no gods.



~Cindy~
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Spelling and grammar errors are left as an exercise for the reader.

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:D

no hard feelings about it!

i dont give much for religion. believing in peace and love and some sort of energy. which religion covers that!? and only that. thats why i'm saying "spiritual".. :)
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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A very Christian centric set of questins. What about I grew up in a non-christian but religious household and still believe.
Just because people aren't Christians doesn't mean they stop believing in God when they grow up.
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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Your poll sucks

Christianitysm
Islamism
Buddhism
Hinduism
Judaism
Scientologysm
Animism
Jainism



Agree
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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And some people think that there are elements (call them spiritual, paranormal, whatever) about people that we just don't understand yet. And they call that spiritual. Some people lump religion in with them. They feel a connection or power.

None of "those" things (e.g. ghosts, ouija boards, etc) work around me. But I'm not arrogant enough to say that it doesn't exist. I am apathetic enough to say that I have no interest in studying them :ph34r:. {{not this bit}} It's a good discipline to remind myself of values that seem to have some universal value (yes, I pick and choose), to spend some time each week thinking about what it means to be a good person, and to be with people who have the same focus.

Wendy W.



why are we on the same page so much - separated at birth?

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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believing in peace and love and some sort of energy. which religion covers that!?



pretty much any of them

I'd call that faith (belief without proof)- with a religious applicability - pretty much distilled down to it's basic form

But I make a very clean separation between the terms - faith, religion, church - with church being what REALLY puts people off their feed

faith - belief without proof (usually with a positive spin)
religion - rituals used in practice to reinforce faith - also harmless (meditating, praying, etc)

church - an organized structure claiming to be the sole authority to administrate religion - but is really designed to exploit people's faith which would ordinarily allow the people to be better and more decent people passing along and practicing a set of morals that would be good to society, but instead causes people to huddle together and feel superior to others and cause all sorts of problems and issues in the world. Church's goal is power through numbers.

One could also use the 'church' description for any political party as well

but, that's just one guy's opinion

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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well, to get back to my actual statement, that i'd rather call myself "spiritual", based on my above post. are you implying i'm being wether faithful and/or religious!?

i just dont like the idea of an old man sitting "up there", wether his name be god, allah, buddha or whatever..

i believe the "power" is in each and everyone of us and what surrounds us, yet, we're being part of "god" and "god" is part of us. i think that makes me a satanist in fact.. :D

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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i think that makes me a satanist in fact.. :D



you worship a fat guy in red winter clothing that raises reindeer???

isn't that an "old man sitting up there"? (in the north pole)

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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A very Christian centric set of questins. What about I grew up in a non-christian but religious household and still believe.
Just because people aren't Christians doesn't mean they stop believing in God when they grow up.



REALLY? Thanks for mentioning it...

As I already said, I was mostly interested in Christians and if you feel offended that I ignored you, feel free to do so.

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An atheist is someone who says God does not exist.



Nope. An atheist is someone who does not believe in God; he might also say God does not exist, but it's not required. This is NOT the same as "believing there is no God". The typical problem here is that it's not possible to prove non-existence of something which never existed and seen by no one. Do you believe that Babahubra doesn't exist? What about Bebegonda?

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That's equally as bad as the people who says he does. Nobody knows.



"Nobody knows" begs a question: there are people who say we should alter our behavior because the God exist, and it will punish those who will not. So the question is whether you gonna alter your behavior, or not. If you do, you believe in God. If you do not, you do not believe in God. It is that simple.
* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

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A very Christian centric set of questins. What about I grew up in a non-christian but religious household and still believe.
Just because people aren't Christians doesn't mean they stop believing in God when they grow up.



REALLY? Thanks for mentioning it...

As I already said, I was mostly interested in Christians and if you feel offended that I ignored you, feel free to do so.



I'm not in the slightest bit offended, just pointing out that your options are very limited, also given your explaination your thread title is poorly chosen.
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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An atheist is someone who does not believe in God; This is NOT the same as "believing there is no God".



yes it is - the semantics you put up there are meaningless

but I'd write it 'god', not "God", since a real atheist would believe there is no kind of deity or higher powers of any kind - and avoid the childish arguments the personify the deity because they don't explain the atheist's belief, only rationalize the disbelief using disdain - they'd have no religion of any kind, no 'spirituality', no 'karma' beliefs, nothing of any kind. pure facts only. at least that would be respectable

I don't think I've ever really met someone that fits that bill of sale that calls themselves atheist. Quite a few agnostics (gnostics, whatever) maybe, but not the others.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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